Quotes About Connection

The dead could only speak through the mouths of those left behind, and through the signs they left scattered behind them.

As always, he found her better-looking in the flesh than in the memory he had of her when not present.

Many lonely people, Strike knew, found it pleasant to be the focus of somebody's undivided attention and sought to prolong the novel experience.

The feel of her was both new and familiar, as though he had held her a long time ago, as though he had missed it without knowing it for years.

she'd seen a flicker of something in his face that wasn't mere friendship, and they'd hugged, and she'd felt . . . Best not to dwell on that hug, on how like home it had felt, on how a kind of insanity had gripped her at that moment, and she'd imagined him saying 'come with me' and known she'd have gone if he had.

She thought it might be the very first time that Strike had ever given any indication that he saw her as a woman, and she silently filed away the exchange to pore over later, in solitude.

With a twist in his chest, and in spite of his satisfaction at having done what he'd set out to do, he wished he could have called Joan, and told her the end of Margot Bamborough's story, and heard her say she was proud of him, one last time.

He thought of all the times he could have visited, and hadn't. All those missed opportunities to call. All those times he'd forgotten her birthday.

Everyone liked Robin. He liked Robin. How could he fail to like her, after everything they had been through together? However, from the very first he had told himself: this far and no further. A distance must be maintained. Barriers must remain in place.

Nevertheless, there was a kind of relief in admitting the painful truth: she cared deeply for her partner.

Yet he liked her face. He liked her voice. He liked being around her.

Automatically, without considering what he was doing, but with the same desire for comfort that had pushed him into this café, Strike pulled his phone out of his pocket again and called Robin . . .

The dead could only speak through the mouths of those left behind, and through the signs they left scattered behind them. Strike had felt the living woman behind the words she had written to friends; he had heard her voice on a telephone held to his ear; but now, looking down on the last thing she had ever seen in her life, he felt strangely close to her.

Now the sound of her voice, and her laughter, acted on him as it usually did, by making everything seem fractionally less awful.

Except . . . she remembered how much pleasure it had given her to see him sitting in Notes Café, after a week's absence, and how happy she was, no matter the circumstances, to see Strike's name light up her phone.

She could hear Sarah's laugh from the kitchen, even over Coldplay and Rihanna, who were now belting out 'Princess of China' from Matthew's iPod.

but each of those negative images represented a human whose heart had once beaten, whose ambitions and opinions, triumphs and disappointments had been as real Margot Bamborough's...

But he was her best friend.

As always, he found her better-looking in the flesh than in the memory he had of her when not present. This

Id rather die than have more. Actually I'd rather die than most things. But you know that about me. Will I ever see you again? You could come and see me here. Today I imagined you walking in, like I did when your leg. I imagined you telling them to let me go because you loved me and you'd look after me. I cried . . .

The memory of Strike telling her she was his best friend made her heart feel immeasurably lightened, as though something she hadn't realized was weighing on it had been removed forever. After a moment's pleasurable savoring of this feeling . . .

If only she could come inside his head and see what was there, Strike thought, she'd understand that she occupied a unique place in his thoughts and in his affections.

We used to laugh till we cried. I've never laughed like that since.

The memory of him telling her she was his best friend caused a little spurt of happiness every time she returned to it . . .